


Counting on You

by Talc



Series: Modern Thedas AU [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Autism Spectrum, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Panic Attacks, Self-Harm, Social Anxiety, implied abuse?, impractical laws, questionable government policies, questionable psychiatric care, racist laws
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 09:20:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talc/pseuds/Talc
Summary: Cole doesn't remember how to tie his shoelaces. He doesn't remember much at all, in fact, but he's okay with that. He just really wants to find a place where he feels OK and right now that's not looking like a possibility.Lavellan was born with an incurable curse that drove him away from his clan. Though he isolates himself as much as possible, he finds that he really needs people to care about him.Solas is finding it difficult to be salty right now.





	Counting on You

**Author's Note:**

> A prequel to Counting with the Dead. Takes place just before Sailing with the Dead timeline wise. In no way is a required read for the au to make sense, but does give some background on a lot of events mentioned in Counting with the Dead.

Cole doesn’t remember.

It’d take weeks to list _all_ the things Cole doesn’t remember, so there’s no point in doing that. He has forgotten an awful lot.

His name, for instance, he forgot. He knows this because he named himself Cole after the men in the suits found him. His family he forgot, and whatever happened to them. Whatever he did to them (he knows he did something, he can feel it, but _what_ isn’t there anymore). He forgot why the scars are on his fingers. He forgot how to tie his shoes. He forgot the songs he used to know.

Cole is not bothered by the things he can’t remember. He figures that if his brain made him forget, then whatever it was he didn’t want to remember it anyways. He would have remembered it if he needed to, and he doesn’t, so he doesn’t worry about. Sometimes his mind tangles the gaps together. He figures they were meant to be put that way.

The doctor calls it ‘amnesia’. The head doctor calls it ‘cognitive dissonance’. The other children call him crazy, but he doesn’t hear them. He’s never around long enough for them to _really_ remember him, anyways. And he knows how they feel without their bruising whispers, he feels it too.

They tell him one day he’ll be chosen by a family, and the family will love him, but he learns not to listen to these thoughts. Every time they try to place this lie in his head, he meets the family and knows they won’t love him.

It used to be easier, because he used to never talk. He was mute for two years, and the parents wouldn’t be bothered till they tried to give him a home. Then came the problems. He’d follow them around, fidgeted all the time, never made eye contact. He’d stab himself sometimes, or rhythmically bang his head against the wall. He tended to follow around animals, and move things in the house without anyone knowing where or why. People saw him as eerie. They thought he was crazy. They couldn’t handle him.

Then he opened his mouth, and things got worse. He wouldn’t leave the building, they never wanted him that long. He’d sit in the room with him and they’d stare and he’d look at them and then the words that flooded out of his mouth, monotone and intrigued, would be their feelings, their true feelings. They kept telling him to stop, but it was easier to voice things than let them swim in his head. They get very loud in there and they don’t quiet when he asks politely.

The wife is cheating on the husband. The husband didn’t quit smoking, in fact he’s started on more serous addictions. She feels guilty for using a child to save their marriage. He thinks this will work, but wants a girl. One man was thinking funny things about Cole’s body, another woman just wanted to improve her image by adopting a child.

Some potential families seem to think they can help. They look at Cole and tell him they’ve handled difficult children before, that they know how to help him. He tells them that they should stop crying themselves to sleep at night, and that their loved ones will forget them, eventually, if they carry on like that, you should spend time with your sister instead of burying yourself in work, and taking care of children really shouldn’t be work like you see it, he doesn’t love you anymore, stop telling yourself that, you’re in love with women anyways.

When they cry, he cries too. One person calls it empathy. Another calls it insanity.

Then there are the kids and the secrets he learns. They hate him without knowing him. He doesn’t like most of them. They’re loud. They’re crude. One boy comes in with a dead bird and says a cat killed it. Cole says the boy wrung the bird’s neck and takes the carcass from him so he can put it somewhere to decompose. The adults find him with the bird and call him psychotic. He tells him the bird just wanted a nap.

He feels bad for the bird. One of the girl children likes birds a lot, because her mother had a canary before the accident. She doesn’t like when Cole talks about it.

Something inside him still waits for the family he’s promised, though, but it’s a naïve part of him. He’s not going to find a family.

He can’t go to school. It’s not just because he doesn’t have a family, but more because the schools don’t want him either. They don’t understand him. He’s okay with this. He teaches himself what he needs to know. No one ever tells him how to tie his shoelaces.

He never learns to tie his shoelaces.

-

Cole is 16 when he leaves on his own. He knows what being 16 means. He knows in the next few months they’ll try to help him, but soon he’ll be 17 and then 18 and an ADULT and that means he’ll be on his own. He leaves before they can tell him that. He knows.

He lives on the streets, and he thinks he’s OK. Cole stops eating, though. Food doesn’t feel right in his body, so he locks it out. He starts cutting his arms and hands with slivers of glass, but he doesn’t remember why. Cole does something bad. He remembers the blood on his hands. He remembers sleeping for a long, long time…He doesn’t remember anything else.

They find him in a month and bring him back. He doesn’t struggle, doesn’t shout, but he doesn’t want to go. When they see the cuts on his skin, they send him to a head doctor again. The head doctor calls him ‘suicidal’. He doesn’t think that’s true, because he doesn’t want to die, but the doctor won’t listen.

Cole forgets about the other doctors. He forgets about the amnesia. He doesn’t want to remember that he forgot something.

Cole is given to a new family. Evangeline and Rhys don’t understand him, but they don’t hold it against him, and that’s never happened before.

-

Lavellan hasn’t spoken to anyone in three weeks. He’s picked up an interim job as a bookkeeper, but most of the work is from home, so he stays in his apartment and works until shivers wrack his body, not from the cold, but from pure exhaustion. Even when there is no work to do, he keeps going. He looks into financial papers, he audits his own books until there is no possible way he could ever make a mistake, he researches on things he doesn’t need to know about.

His head aches as he works into the fine hours on the morning. He can hear his own heartbeat in his ears every once and awhile, pulsatile tinnitus kicking in with the fatigue. A vein near his eye thrums and he feels that too. His hands tap constantly on his desk, he keeps finding himself chewing on his pens or his fingers.

He stops eating.

He sleeps five hours a day, sporadically when his body gives out. He drinks water, but only sparingly. He keeps finding blood under his fingernails and it takes him days to figure out it’s his own blood from the scratches on his back.

The days go on and on and his skin becomes pale, his eyes blank. Then the day comes where he has to go into work for once, and it takes him forever to get into the shower, then forever to get out. He pulls on his suit with shaking hands. He finds he doesn’t have the coordination to tie his tie. He puts on a clip on.

He arrives at work only to find he’s three hours early. The building is still locked. The sun hasn’t even risen yet, which just demonstrates to Lavellan how much time he’s been losing, how much he’s been disassociating. This is his worst nightmare, though. He hates being early. He hates being late. He always is just on time, he has to be. Interactions are unpredictable when people become unpredictable. If he himself cannot be predictable, how can he hope for others to follow?

He can’t be seen here, waiting, watching, panicking. He thinks of going back to his apartment, but he knows if he goes home now he won’t have the will to return. He considers finding a coffee shop and waiting there, but that poses more problems than it creates. Waiting, ordering, being around so many people…No, he can’t. He wanders off to a nearby park, sits on a bench with his knees drawn up. It’s freezing outside. He keeps bouncing his leg, rocking every once and awhile till he catches himself. He’s so cold…

Time passes, but he does not realise it. His mind wanders. He thinks of his cat. He misses his cat.

The weight of something on his shoulders is comforting, but terrifying. He jumps, clutching to his ears in surprise.

“Apologies, da’len.” The voice that speaks is soft and genuine. It speaks elvish, which is more comforting than Lavellan would like to admit. Familiar. “I did not mean to surprise you.”

Lavellan doesn’t remember closing his eyes, but they slide open to reveal a stranger standing in front of him. He’s pale with wise eyes, dressed in a thick turtleneck and scarf. He’s an elf, but he has no vallaslin. He’s smiling.

“You’re shivering. Forgive me.” The man’s hands reach out and tuck the weight around Lavellan. He realises it’s a coat, a long, furred travelling coat. Lavellan clutches to it, feeling some of the little warmth in his body start to linger. “That’s better. You need to breath, da’len.” Lavellan had not realised he’d been holding his breath. “Do you know how to count your breathes?” A nod. He begins to count his breathing in his head, every second, letting the numbers give him something concrete to follow. He reaches out his hand and feels a warm, gloved one touch his, which he clutches to tightly.

Minutes pass and the panic recedes. His eyes have slid shut again, and he opens them to find the elven stranger is now sitting next to him, one hand holding his and the other wrapped around his shoulders. His head is pressed against the man’s chest, and it takes him a moment to remember putting it there himself.

“Apologies…” Lavellan mumbles, starting to extract himself from the man. “I…I tend to to…To congregate towards others when I…Panic…”

“No worries, da’len, I understand.” The soft voice replies. “If I had been bothered by your physical contact, I would have not let you touch me.” The simple logic eases Lavellan, and he finally lets himself look at the man.

“Still…” He whispers to himself, thinking about how much of an inconvenience this must be for the man.

“Do not blame yourself for your anxiety attack.” Lavellan hasn’t heard something so comforting in awhile. “I’m sorry if you do not want to answer, but what triggered this?” And now that comfort was gone.

“I have a…A curse.” He says, because that is what it is. His madness is a curse set upon him, it must be. That is the only way madness can find its way into another being. Someone reached into the Fade and cast a curse on him, despite the lack of logic in that. The Fade had been closed off thousands of years ago, but superstition always lingers among the Dalish.

“A curse?” The stranger looks confused.

“Yes, a curse.” Lavellan explains his curse to the stranger without even thinking. He explains how the Dalish know curses to work as if he were teaching. He explains how fear ebbs its way into his head at the thought of other people, other beings. “The fear of others can only be a curse, for it is madness.” He says, and he means it. “Madness comes from the Fade, and things that come from the Fade are curses. So I am cursed.”

The stranger looks angry, and this makes Lavellan flinch, which makes the man’s face soften.

“You are freezing, da’len. Could I persuade you to move someplace warmer?” He says in a soothing voice. Lavellan fears people. He fears their judgement, and their thoughts. He fears their voices, and their eyes. He fears their touch. But there is something eerily comforting about this stranger. It is not just that he is an elf, like Lavellan himself, nor is it just because he is currently wearing the man’s coat, which smells like dying leaves and fresh soil, like the woods he grew up in, but something sets the smaller elf’s mind at ease, something about this stranger…

“Name…?” He finds himself murmuring, looking at the stranger’s hands, one of which is still being held by his own hand. He hadn’t realised his death grip was still anchoring him to the man. He can’t seem to move his hand away, though, the grounding feeling of his whitening knuckles a painful reminder that he is there, not floating off into a sea of panic, not reaching for void and unending sleep.

“Ah yes, introductions. I am Solas.” Solas. The name seemed to fit the man very well.

“Lavellan.” He introduces himself back to Solas, voice quiet and weak.

He agrees to go someplace warmer with Solas. He is taken to a library where the heat is on high and he can sit in a comfy chair, folding into himself, but no longer out of fear. Somehow, Solas can tell he isn’t very afraid of libraries.

Solas doesn’t want to leave him alone until he is OK, so they sit in the corner of the library and Solas lets him rest on his shoulder whilst the older elf takes to reading a book. When Lavellan feels good enough, he starts to murmur, to Solas or himself he does not know, but he talks about his job. He talks about moving from Orlais. He talks about Sera, and Fen. He talks about his clan.

He tells Solas that things were working, until they stopped. Solas listens patiently. Solas doesn’t ask any prying questions. Solas lets Lavellan play with his fingers and trace lines on his arms.

Solas eventually walks him to work, and leaves behind his jacket with Lavellan. They do not exchange phone numbers, because Lavellan is afraid of phones, but they exchange emails. Lavellan is also afraid of emails, but not as much.

The first thing he does when he gets home is write Sera a letter. The second thing he does is sleep.

-

Lavellan is 23 when he finally goes to see a psychiatrist. School was working. Work was working. The talisman his keeper gave him _was_ working, and when it stopped working he _made it work_. After having to leave Orlais, though, this new environment is stifling. He’s panicking more and more. He goes to see someone.

Sera is the first one to worry. When he first talks about moving, she says she won’t let him unless he seeks out a doctor. With Sera’s scepticism of science and medicine, that means a lot. But even after promising her he’d seek out a doctor in Fereldan, he had kept his fingers crossed behind his back, and lied.

Solas is the second straw. Him and Lavellan keep in correspondence after their meeting, and he shows growing concern for Lavellan’s lack of medication, or proper medical treatment for his ‘curse’. Lavellan did not know that medicine could help curses.

His keeper worries as well, and that is the poignant one that clings to his ears. He hadn’t kept much in touch with his Clan since he left, but the Keeper sent him letters bi-monthly. Her concern over his ‘curse’ growing stronger was something he had found disheartening in a number of ways. It’s not like seeking out a doctor was easy, though.

Starting accountants don’t make a lot of money, not really. He doesn’t have proper health insurance because he’s Dalish, and the insurance companies will not except him as he only has a partial citizenship status in any country he enters. Getting citizenship status would take too long, so he’d left to his own income. He’s apparently not worth insurance. So, his psychiatrist is cheap, dirt cheap, and not very good. He meets with her in a dingy office building.

“Ser Lavellan, you’re not cursed.” Are the words that break him. He finds himself crying large, heaving tears as the woman explains how anxiety disorders work. He sobs as she tells him he has never been cursed, but suffers from Socialphobia, and can be helped. He feels like his whole life has been a lie. He feels elated to find out he’s not broken, only sick.

Solas meets up with him after the appointment and drives him home. They both sit on Lavellan’s couch as the smaller elf weeps into his new friend’s chest.

-

The cloying smell of the doctor’s office reminds Cole of death. That doesn’t bother him, though. He’s used to the death, to the pain in his ears, and eyes, and nose. He hums and rocks in his seat, wringing his hands as he stares at a pale blue wall, trying to pretend he’s not here. He is here, though, he’s been sitting here for ten minutes, rocking and staring.

“Cole, stop that. You’ll make your wounds worse.” A voice says and Cole has to whisper to himself to remember that it’s Rhys sitting next to him in the ER. Cole forgot why they were here. Rhys says he hurt himself, but he doesn’t feel any real pain.

The stinging sensation in his heals is grounding and he tries to still his rocking.

“No, Cole, that’s literally horrible for you.” Rhys’ voice is sharp. Cole doesn’t flinch, just tries to stop. He can’t just stop, though, or else the cloud in his head sets, so he digs his nails into his thighs, replacing pain with pain.

Rhys sighs.

A nurse comes over with a clipboard and asks them what’s wrong.

“He’s got glass in his feet.” Rhys states. Cole hums.

The nurse writes notes and listens to Rhys, and nods, and keeps trying to ask Cole questions, but her voice sounds fuzzy and he lets Rhys answer. He’s focusing on the people in the room. A girl sits in a chair cradling her arm. Her mother sits next to her, glaring at the wall, eyes stung red from tears. Whoever broke the girl’s arm left bruises all over her neck and torso. The mother is clean, but there’s blood on her shoes.

Cole knows, and he speaks. He tells of how the man who hurt them had too much to drink. He tells about the screaming, ‘it’s over it’s over’ but it won’t be over, she’s already blaming her daughter. The girl doesn’t want to cry, crying is for the weak, that’s why momma doesn’t cry. But her mother’s already been crying ‘why did papa do this?’ Cole. ‘I should just end it, end it for both of us.’ Cole. ‘They’re going to ask, we can’t tell them, we should just leave, we should di-‘ COLE.

Cole jumps at the loud voice at his ears, covering them swiftly. He blinks and in a few moments he can see Rhys crouched in front of him. He doesn’t look happy. He isn’t; he’s worried, and embarrassed. The ER was the worst place for Cole. Everyone wanted the pain to end, so much pain, so much-

“Cole. I need you to stay with me.” Rhys is speaking again. Cole tries to focus. He blinks, digs his nails into his thighs.

“But I am with you?” He says. Rhys sighs in relief.

“Yes yes, of course.” He stands, still looking at Cole. Cole can feel his eyes and wishes he could pluck them out. Eyes keep watching, daggers daggers. No. No he’s paying attention. Rhys is telling him about the nurse and a wheelchair. She’s coming over now, she wants to help Cole into the chair but Rhys stops her.

Cole stands on his bloody feet and stumbles into the wheelchair. Rhys is speaking to the nurse in a hushed voice. Cole can hear him, but he doesn’t like the words, so he forgets them.

The experience with the ER doctors does not go well. Cole doesn’t want to be touched, but they have to remove the glass. He tries to get away and has to be restrained, and that doesn’t help because he tries to break one of his arms to get out of the restraints, and he keeps screaming ‘no no no not again, not again’, and then they have to knock him out.

When he comes to he’s in a different room and there are bruises on Rhys’ face. The bandages on his feet feel too heavy, and the air too thick.

“If they want to die, why don’t they kill them.” Is the first words out of his mouth as he stares at Rhys from the bed.

“What?” Rhys is confused. He takes a seat next to Cole and rakes his fingers through greying hair.  He’s tired, too tired, not like he needs to sleep, more like he needs to stop.

“They want to die. There’s so much pain, so much ache. If they die they can stop it. Why wouldn’t they stop it? Why won’t they end the suffering? _I don’t understand._ ” He stares at Rhys with a look of absolute panic. Why don’t they just die? Why why why why-

“Cole they…Sometimes…Sometimes people want to keep trying…They…” Rhys mulls over his words, trying to find a way to explain better. “Cole, why are you alive?” He asks, not expecting the question to backfire. Of course it does.

Cole doesn’t know how to answer that. He thinks of his life. There’s no reason for him to be alive, not with all the hurt, and the pain. But if he was gone, who would help the hurt? If he was gone…No, they don’t _need_ him. Why is he alive? He doesn’t know.

“…They kept stopping me.” He responds. He doesn’t know what the words mean, but he feels like it’s true. He thinks of the alleyways and the long stripes running up his arms. Rhys recoils and Cole flinches. No, he said something wrong. He wants to apologise, but it won’t help. He’s the one causing the distress, he’s the hurt.

No, maybe not. Cole thinks of the long lines on his arms again. It’s hard to remember, the memories are so blurry. No, not really, more like riddled with holes. He tries to think about the alleyway and spots appear like they were cut out by a big pair of scissors. He doesn’t remember making himself forget.

“If I die, I can’t help people.” He says, because he feels like this is the truth, more true than his previous statement. “I want to help people.”

Rhys looks visibly relaxed at this admission. “Some people, like you, have goals like that. Reasons to live, to keep going. They hope that they’ll get help, that things will get better. Dying ruins that opportunity.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Cole argues. “Because they want to die. I can feel it. They want to end it.” He’s raised his hands to his head and suddenly feels the sting of his hair being pulled taut. It’s grounding enough for him to catch the end of Rhys’s response.

“And so even if they feel like they should…End it, they know, deep down, they still have a chance.” Rhys sounds so patient, and the feel is so alien in Cole’s ears.

“But some of them don’t.”

“And sometimes people give that chance to them.”

“They shouldn’t make that decision for them. If they want to stop it…It would help.”

Rhys nods. “Not everyone has that same ideology, Cole. A lot of people think that the hope for a better life is better than definitively ending suffering.” He seems to be ending his knowledge of the subject, because he looks down and wrings his hands thoughtfully. “I’m not going to tell you how to think, Cole. That’s not my job. But I personally don’t believe a swift end is the answer to pain.”

Cole doesn’t understand.

Cole desperately wants to understand.

-

Solas’s apartment is much larger than Lavellan’s. It’s full of books, and paintings, and smells like mildew and acrylics.

Lavellan finds himself on Solas’s couch almost every day after work, curling up with a book and a mug of tea, watching Solas pour over a document on his laptop a few inches away. More often than not, he finds himself falling asleep there, waking up in the early hours of the morning to find himself covered in blankets and pillows, head resting against the arm of the couch.

The first night he crawls into Solas’s bed, he’s just finished his first job interview for a place in a real firm. He went straight to Solas’s apartment once the ordeal ended and passed out at the elf’s kitchen table. Solas had bundled him up and they sat on the floor and watched rain fall out Solas’s floor to ceiling window. When he found himself asleep on the couch again, he shivered, wrecked with anxiety.

Suddenly he remembered the interview, the idea of working around people, constantly being judged. Millions of phantom eyes glared at him, born from his imagination, but feeling all too real. He couldn’t do this, not now.

He stumbled into Solas’s bedroom, leaning on the walls to support his ever weakening legs, and stood at the foot of the older elf’s bed, clutching to the bottom of his tunic.

“Da’len?” Solas’s voice was thick with sleep as he sat up to peer at Lavellan through the dark.

“I’m…I’m scared.” Lavellan whispered, shaking because he hates telling the truth like that. Solas pulled his covers aside and gestured for Lavellan to come over. The smaller elf crawled next to his friend, burying his face in his neck, clutching to his upper arms.

“It’s alright, lethallin. You’re okay.” Solas’s voice is always soothingly welcome. He tugged the covers over the two of them, letting the smaller elf curl up in his arms. He slid his fingers through his friend’s hair, stroking it slowly, humming a soft tune until the iron grip on his arms lets up and Lavellan sighed, nuzzling his face into Solas’s collarbone.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled against bare skin.

“No need to apologise, da’len.” Solas let the smaller elf settle against him, fingers trailing down from his arms to around his chest. He continued to hold Lavellan to his chest, adjusting their position so they both can lay down comfortably, Lavellan using his upper chest as a pillow, right over his heart.

“You smell like pine…” Lavellan murmured into his skin, nuzzling closer and inhaling. Solas chuckled softly, taking up stroking his friend’s hair again.

“I couldn’t possibly know why.”

“Hmmm…” Lavellan just hummed, letting himself finally relax enough to go slack in Solas’s arms.

“Goodnight, lethallin.” The smaller elf doesn’t even respond, he’s already fast asleep.

-

It’s well past midnight when Evangeline arrives at the hospital. She’s still dressed in her uniform, hair falling out of its tie as she swiftly walks into Cole’s hospital room, face etched in worry when her eyes set upon Rhys’s bruised face, and Cole’s heavily bandaged feet.

She’s at Cole’s side in a second, reaching for his hand, wanting to comfort him, but he flinches and she goes still, the memory that he doesn’t want to be touched hitting her like a bucket of ice. Evangeline apologises wordlessly and grabs Rhys’s hand instead. “What happened?” Her voice is soft, but still dripping with the authority she normally sets aside for her day job. She was still in officer mode, if only a little.

“I dropped a bowl while I was making dinner, and while I was getting the broom Cole just…Kept working. On the broken glass.” Rhys explains, slow and careful. “He was bleeding so much, I took him right here…”

“How long ago was that?”

“We got here around seven.”

Evangeline sighs, setting her face in her empty hand.

“It was a long wait, and the um…Well, taking out all the glass took a long while. Then they had to stitch him up.” Rhys frowns as he sees Evangeline’s mouth set in a firm line. “They said there’s no reason to keep him overnight, but…One of the doctors was concerned…”

Cole closes his eyes and listens, and he doesn’t like what he hears. Cole tries to forget, but for once it doesn’t work.

-

The morning sun rises, but Solas has curtains so thick not a drop of light leaks through. Still, his internal clock is immaculate, and he rises with the sun, opening his eyes just as early dawn strikes.

The first thing he acknowledges in the warm body in his arms. Lavellan is practically laying on top of him, now, small body curled up atop his chest and lap. His left leg has fallen asleep under the weight, and his right leg aches at an awkward angle. He shifts slowly, letting the elf using him as a mattress slip more to his side so his circulation can return a bit.

As Lavellan’s head shifts, he suddenly realises there’s a warm, wet spot on his shoulder, and smiles fondly at the thought of his friend drooling while he sleeps, thought he reaches out and wipes away the saliva with a sheet, not wanting it to dry on his skin. Saline, and all that.

Solas can’t do much with an elf lying in his arms, but he doesn’t want to wake him up, either. His friend has looked absolutely exhausted recently, and seeing him so relaxed isn’t something he wants to take away anytime soon, so he busies himself playing with Lavellan’s hair the best he can without rousing him, chuckling silently to himself because the smaller elf flat out mewls in his sleep, and it’s adorable.

He knows when Lavellan wakes up because the body in his arms goes stiff and tense. Solas gives him a moment of adjust, to remember, before filling in the blanks. “You had a small anxiety attack last night.” He explains, returning to stroking his friend’s hair.

“Oh…” Lavellan slowly relaxes, shifting so he can look up at Solas. “Ir abelas.”

“It was no trouble. I’m always here to help you, lethallin.”

“Ma serannas.” Lavellan whispers his thanks into Solas’s chest. He reaches out a hand to place flat in front of his face, across Solas’s left pectoral. His finger traces lines down the older elf’s chest, running over the outline of a wolf howling at a moon.

Solas had once explained to him that though he never received his vallaslin, skin markings weren’t solely a tradition of the Dalish. Actually, he’d shown a great dislike in vallaslin (Though why, Lavellan had yet to find out), but welcomed to show Lavellan his own markings, the ones he said were stories long forgotten.

“This is a map of the sins of Fen’Harel.” He had said, folding up his shirt and setting it aside so that Lavellan could see the stylised pictures on his chest and back. He’d explained how his anthropological studies were focused on the ancient elvhen, a search of restoring what was lost thousands and thousands of years ago. He told of his interest in Fen’Harel a few times, but had stopped bringing it up after Lavellan showed genuine discomfort from hearing the stories. Despite Solas insisting the Dread Wolf was highly interpreted incorrectly by the old stories, Lavellan was still Dalish raised, and these theories were hard to hear. 

“Did you design these yourself?” Lavellan murmurs. Looking at the markings from so close made them look warped and blurry, but the style seemed undeniably Solas’s.

“I drew the drafts of them.” Solas’s voice always sounds like patience being acted on a child. Sometimes it makes Lavellan feel small, but most of the time that’s a comfort. “A friend of mine did the actual markings.”

“Hmmm…” Lavellan hums, leaning forwards to press a kiss to the nose of the howling wolf. “They’re pretty.” He says, not seeming to notice that Solas shivers slightly under his lips. His finger trails down to Solas’s hips where below the wolf is a forest of halla. “I don’t think I ever told you this, but I love halla.” He looks up at Solas with a smile.

“I’m fond of them, too.” Solas smiles back, placing a hand over Lavellan’s where the halla are.

“When I was very young, I got cut off from my clan for a few days. A herd of halla found me and took care of me until my mother found me…It was so nice living with them for that short time. It was like…” He signs and rolls onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “This is going to sound stupid…”

“I doubt that, Da’len.” Solas smooths out the smaller elf’s hair soothingly.

“I just…for once in my life I didn’t feel cursed. I’d always been so afraid, every moment of my life was my stupid curse, and for just a handful of days all that fear and judgement I constantly felt was just…gone. The halla didn’t make me feel scared, they took care of me…I would give anything to feel like that again.” He sniffs, suddenly realising his eyes are watering.

“You can have that again.” Solas says quietly. “That’s what therapy is for, Lethallin. With therapy and medication, you can stop being so afraid. I doubt you’ll ever get the same feeling back unless you isolate yourself again, but…”

“I can feel safe.” Lavellan is crying now, silent tears trailing down his cheeks, dripping onto Solas’s chest. “I can feel safe again…” He curls into his friend again, holding back wracking sobs.

Solas tugs him closer, letting him bury his face into Solas’s neck. He curses the Dalish silently for doing this to his friend. Why would they cling to their ways so much as to ignore what the humans had figured out ages ago. Why would they continue to call something healable a curse? How dare they? How _dare they_?

Lavellan whimpering below him is the only way he tells that he’s tightened his grip on him considerably. “Ir abelas…” He murmurs, loosening his hold. “I promise I’ll be here with you every step of the way.”

“Ma serannas…” Lavellan whispers as Solas wipes tears from his eyes with his thumbs.

They stay like that, lying in the middle of Solas’s bed, Lavellan curled up against Solas, for the better portion of an hour. When they finally raise themselves form the sheets, it’s late enough for brunch to be appropriate. Solas lets Lavellan take a shower first whilst he goes to set them up a meal.

Lavellan comes out of the shower with his hair in braids, dressed in a pair of Solas’s pants, which are way too long for him, and a sweater that’s only slightly too big.

“I stole some of your clothes.” He yawns and pads into the room, stopping beside Solas, who is standing at his kitchen counter, to set his head on his shoulder.

“That’s fine, Da’len.” Solas smiles softly and wraps an arm around his friend, who leans more heavily against him. “Still tired?”

“Mhmm..” Lavellan hums his agreement, eyes already closed.

“Go take a seat on the couch while I finish up with this, then?” Solas gestures to the food he’s trying to prepare. Lavellan murmurs another agreement and drags himself over to the couch, curling up on one end with his head resting on the arm.

When their brunch is ready, Solas settles next to Lavellan on the couch, chuckling as the smaller elf blinks blearily at him, still only half awake.

“Sit up, Da’len.” He says softly, tugging on Lavellan’s arm so he sits up and almost immediately rests his head on Solas’s shoulder. “I don’t think you can eat like that?” He smiles fondly, not moving to push the smaller man off of him.

“I’ll eat in a second…” Lavellan murmurs, turning his head to bury his face in the junction between Solas’s should and neck.

“Alright.” Solas wraps his arm around Lavellan, tugging him closer and letting the man use him as a pillow whilst he eats his own breakfast. “Cold oatmeal is disgusting, you know.” He points out.

“I know.” A moment of silence as Lavellan seems to try and fall back asleep. “Gimme’” He raises his hands, making a grabbing motion towards the breakfast.

Solas smiles fondly, handing his friend the bowl of oatmeal.

When they’re finished, Solas tries to collect the bowls and stand so he can wash them, but is weighed down by Lavellan again. “No.” Somehow he was still tired.

Solas relents and sets down the bowls again. “Let me rearrange us, then, Lethallin.” He adds gently, tugging on Lavellan’s arm.

“Hmmm…Fine.” He slowly sits up and lets Solas move so they’re both lying horizontal on the couch, Lavellan tucked under the older elf’s chin. It’s not a particularly wide couch, nor is it very long, so Solas’s legs are hanging slightly over the side and the two are pressed up tight to one another, an arm around Lavellan to ensure he doesn’t fall off, but despite the precarious arrangement, the two fall into an amiable silence, and it’s not long before Lavellan’s breathing levels out into sleep again.

Three hours later, Solas finds himself waking Lavellan up after dozing with him for a good amount of time because A. They’d passed lunchtime, and Lavellan needed to eat B. Solas hadn’t showered yet and C. He was also still shirtless, and it’s cold and he can’t reach a blanket.

It wouldn’t be much of an issue, but Solas has shit blood circulation, so Lavellan relents and wanders into the kitchen to make them both a meal whilst Solas showers. They soon eat their meal in silence, and Lavellan asks Solas if he can stay here tonight, again.

Solas, of course, obliges.

The second time Lavellan crawls into Solas’s bed, he falls asleep before Solas can even join him. He feels safe, for once.

-

The hospital provides them with a wheelchair to get Cole to Rhys’s car, and Evangeline tells them she’ll be home soon, just has to return her vehicle to the station. Rhys feeds himself two cups of stale drip coffee so he doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel, and drives a sleeping Cole back to his home. Their home. He wanted it to be their home, at least. But both Rhys and Evangeline knew they weren’t quite there yet. They knew Cole knew as well. By now they had learned Cole knows everything, even if he doesn’t tell it.

It’s well past four in the morning when all three are finally in the house again. Rhys and Evangeline retire to bed almost immediately, but Cole doesn’t. Instead, he waits for the house to quiet before wandering outside and taking a seat on the concrete steps of the building.

There are no stars in the sky tonight. Cole hasn’t seen stars before, not really. He’s always been in cities, always been surrounded by light. He remembers asking someone when he was a child why they never see the stars. He does not remember who answered, but the answer itself he knows. It’s the light from the city. It’s strange how living can make things disappear.

It's cold outside, but the subtle numbness on his skin is a blessing. After spending so much time in the hospital, he felt overheated, crowded. He decides he hates hospitals; hates the feeling of being surrounded by so many people, so many emotions he can’t help. Why can’t he help?

Cole thinks of the conversation Evangeline and Rhys had had in the hospital. He knows they know that he was listening, even though he hadn’t spoken or looked at them. He knows they don’t know what to do.

“What do you mean, concerned?” Cole raises the pitch of his voice as he mimics Evangeline’s response to Rhys.

“He thought…Well, he thought maybe something is wrong with Cole. Very wrong.”

Evangeline had swallowed harshly at this comment. “He’s fine.” Her voice trembled.

“I told him that. I explained everything, but the doctor wasn’t convinced. He thought we should get Cole committed.”

“Committed?”

“To an asylum…”

“We don’t have that right. Not legally.”

“I don’t want to put Cole in a place like that, it wouldn’t help.”

Cole hadn’t spoken Rhys’s thoughts allowed at that moment, but he does now as he sits on the steps, body shivering without his notice, hands wringing each other violently, “No not him not him never we can’t not like. I was, and I’ll never subject, no no no.” The panic in Rhys’s mind had been so loud it was practically yelling in Cole’s head, sending him off into a panic as his empathy attempted to mimic Rhys’s emotions.

He hadn’t noticed the hyperventilation until a nurse was rushing into the room.

It’s past five in the morning now. The sky is still dark, and Cole stares up at it and imagines nothing.

“I don’t want to go.” He tells himself. He thinks of his future. He is 17. Soon he will be and ADULT. Soon they will take him away from Rhys and Evangeline. The thought hurts his head.

That morning, as Cole pulls himself back into the house, body stiff and aching from the cold, he vows to make his time with this couple last.

-

The tenth time Lavellan crawls into Solas’s bed, it is almost winter. Clouds grow dark and heavy with snow, he can practically smell it in the air. He found out his apartment’s heating was going to be down for a few weeks, and accidentally let it slip to Solas. He wouldn’t be allowed to sleep there if he wanted to, after that.

Sometimes he thinks Solas is a mother hen; he worries far too much.

He’s been talking to Sera a lot more recently. She was finding Orlais to be boring, running out of ideas, or at least odd hobbies to pick up. She misses Lavellan, though she doesn’t admit it in so many words, and writes him more often than should make sense. He’s received ten letters from her in the past week alone, three of them sent on the same day.

A lot of them are pictures of his/their cat. Lavellan sits on Solas’s livingroom floor and sorts out the letters, showing the photos to the older elf as he sits on the couch and types away on his laptop. Solas has started a new research project, and spends most of his time on that laptop. When Lavellan visits, which is more often than not, he takes the roles of volunteer assistant and gathers books for him.

“Apparently she only has one semester left.” Lavellan explains, holding up a polaroid photo of a grinning Sera with their cat, Fen, sitting dutifully on her hacksaw hair.

“That is the cat she stole from you, correct?” Solas asks after looking away from his work to glance at the photo in Lavellan’s hand.

“Yes, that’s my Fen.”

Solas raises an eyebrow. “You never explained to me why you named your cat ‘wolf’.”

Lavellan sets down the photo with a shrug. “I don’t really know. She looked like a fierce cat…And maybe…Ugh, you’ll think this is stupid.” The smaller elf blushes.

“If I do, I promise not to voice it.” Solas promises solemnly.

“Ugh, fine…You know how the Dalish keep wolf statues at the edges of our camps?”

“I believe they are supposed to be Fen’Harel, yes?” Of course Solas knows what he’s talking about, he’s a fucking anthropologist. “The Dalish only keep him outside of their camps, like they’re shaming him.” There’s a bite to Solas’s words, and Lavellan suddenly remembers why he never lets Solas talk about Fen’Harel.

“When I was young I used to think the wolves were like…Like guards. They kept us safe, kept the rest of the world from hurting us by scaring them away…I guess when I moved to Orlais I didn’t feel that way anymore. I was alone until I met my cat. She was like my guard. My Fen’Harel…” He shakes his head. “I told you it was stupid.”

Lavellan pulls his knees up to his chest and keeps his eyes in front of him. He feels too raw, not used to sharing pieces of his childhood. The sound of shuffling behind him preambles Solas crouching at his feet. “Da’len.” His soft voice is always grounding for Lavellan, but right now he feels too embarrassed to even look at Solas.

“Da’len.” Solas repeats, as he raises his hand to Lavellan’s face, slow enough that Lavellan can say no if he wants to. He doesn’t, though, and Solas hooks two fingers under his chin to raise it so he’s looking at Solas. Granted, Solas knows Lavellan will not make eye contact, but at least they’re facing each other.

“What?” Lavellan murmurs.

The look Solas is giving him is so intense, it almost makes Lavellan back away. “There is nothing ‘stupid’ about what you told me.” Solas’s hand slips from Lavellan’s chin to cup the side of his face, leaning closer. “Lethallin, listen to me.”

“Yes?” Lavellan feels very, very small.

“I will never mock you for sharing a piece of yourself with me. I would never hurt you that way.” Their faces are less than a foot apart, and Lavellan realizes that he doesn’t really mind. “Do you understand, Da’len?” Solas’s voice remains quiet, like it always is when he talks to Lavellan, but there is a strict determination in his cadence that cannot be avoided.

“I understand.” Lavellan whispers. Solas’s hand is warm on his skin, and he unconsciously leans into it. Touch normally burns him, but this is welcome. So much so that when Solas sighs in relief and moves to sit back, Lavellan let’s hand snap upwards and hold Solas’s touch to his face, pulling Solas forward to they are closer, much closer.

He presses his forehead to Solas’s and closes his eyes; relishes in the feeling of closeness, the intimacy of the act. It’s foreign, unwonted, but not bad.

It seems like a millennium later when Lavellan lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding and moves his head away from Solas’s. The look on his friend’s face is shocked, but it swiftly morphs to an immense fondness.

He offers his hands to Lavellan, and the smaller elf accepts them. “I trust you.” Lavellan murmurs.

“That is good.” Solas replies.

-

Cole still isn’t allowed to go to school. It’s not his fault, he’s been told, it’s the school’s, but he remembers when he did go to school.

“I bit one of the teachers.” He admits to Evangeline. She doesn’t quite look at him the same way again.

Still, her and Rhys spend a long time fighting to get Cole back in school. They tell Cole it’s because he deserves an education, just like everyone else, but he sees the other reasons. They’re afraid. Of what, he has a hard time understanding. In one corner, they only know a world where systematic education is necessary to succeed in life, so they feel like they’re failing as interim parents if they don’t provide that for Cole. On the other hand, they don’t want Cole to fall behind, to become one of _those_ people.

Cole decides they might not have all the right reasons, but school makes sense to him soon. It comes to their attention that Cole is very far behind, though.

He can read, technically. He doesn’t know the letters, doesn’t understand the concept of how words work, how reading really works. Where other kids learned reading in pieces, he learned it by trial and error, by necessity. When he reads he sees less of letters that make up words that make up sentences and more symbols that mean speech patterns that connect with the noises that work with his mouth. He understands how his mouth makes these noises, knows how his tongue moves, how his teeth work with the words, connects the dots together to understand reading.

So, he can read. Not conventionally, but enough.

Mathematics is trickier. He knows arithmetic. Adding and subtracting happen without him trying, because the concepts make sense. You add something and you have more of it, you subtract and you have less, the existing quantity controls the amount; math makes sense, so the basics just appear eventually. His counting isn’t too fantastic, but he knows the basics. Sometimes, when he gets to higher numbers, he tends to read them out wrong. 4,324 becomes four three two four, and so on, he doesn’t know any better. Words like hundreds, thousands, and millions are not something he has in his dictionary.

The concept of multiplication and division makes sense the same way adding and subtracting do, but the larger numbers he can’t really touch.

History comes from what he can pick up on. People talk about the before like it’s current events. They discuss the fade, and the blights, it’s not hard to know.

Science, like his understanding of math, is accurate but skewed. No, not skewed, more like misnamed. He knows how some things work, but doesn’t have the expansive vocabulary to describe it, so he fills in what he doesn’t know with words he does. It really just makes him sound more poetic than uneducated.

But, if you were to say to Rhys or Evangeline that Cole is uneducated, they would be offended on his behalf, but he wouldn’t. He _is_ uneducated. He hasn’t been educated since he was very young, since the years he can’t remember, since the times before he talked. He lacks an education, hasn’t even really had an informal one.

It really takes a lot to offend Cole, though.

Neither Evangeline nor Rhys give up on bullying the local school systems. They hit a roadblock when Evangeline intimidates them too much and basically is banned form the building. In the interim, Rhys spends his free time teaching Cole what he can. Since he works on school hours anyways, Rhys is fine with taking Cole with him to work and letting the kid watch his lectures on historical magical theory, or the history of mage circles. As well, he gives Cole worksheets out of teaching books and makes some of his own.

Steadily Cole begins to understand what he’s been missing out on all these years. He even learns how to tie his shoes.

-

He turned off all the lights in his apartment. In fact, he took out all the lightbulbs and threw them away. He taped his blinds to the windows. He closed the curtains and let himself sink onto the floor, into the darkness, impermeable and endless.

With just the floor under him, the shivers that wrack his body feel like a seizure. He clutches to himself and resigns himself to waiting out the anxiety attack, but that time never comes. He spirals into lapses of hyperventilation and harsh screams. His throat feels raw and his head foggy. He can hear the blood pumping in his ears, can feel his own veins like they’re searing wires. It hurts, it hurts so much. He thinks he’s dying. He is dying, this is what death feels like.

Time passes like a wave. He is drowning, scraping to the surface for desperate gasps of air. There are moments when he can’t tell if he’s unconscious or dreaming, or if he’s awake and staring into the darkness. His head throbs along with his bones, aching from laying on the floor. Has it been hours? Has it been days? Years? It feels like the panic is never ending. He was born in this darkness and will die in this darkness. He will die.

Death sounds better than this agony. He screams, and the void swallows his anguish. He cries out and the null takes his pain and sends it back tenfold. He curses every god in his pantheon, prays for them to help him, but nothing answers.

Let him die. Please, please let him die.

But death does not come, and he is left shivering on the hardwood floor, teeth clattering together as if he was freezing to death. The room is too warm. He is too warm. He can’t feel his body anymore. He doesn’t know where his hands are. He can’t breathe.

He can’t breathe.

-

Look, Anders has been studying for his first semester finals for six days straight. He hasn’t slept in a week, has hardly eaten. Med school is hell, and finally FINALLY he’s finished his last final and he can have dinner and sleep tonight, fucking finally sleep, but noooo he doesn’t get that luxury.

His neighbour is usually quiet. They’d never met, but he’s never heard a single sound from next door, despite the fact that the walls are thin as cellophane. His other neighbour, he fucking knows, has been faking orgasms for months and really should just ditch her boyfriend, but the dude next door? Silent.

So the screams are an issue. They start out as low moans, then high pitched whimpers and then shouts. Benign noises of existence.

At first, Anders is pissed. He finally gets sleep, and his neighbour finally gets laid, fine.

But then the shouts turn to chilling, blood curdling screams, screams Anders knows. He remembers them from his three years in the army as a medic, knows them from patients in the ER who’ve lost they’re legs, or had third degree burns on a too large percentage of their body..

He’s running out into the hallway of his apartment building without a thought. More doors slam open and a good portion of the building is gathering. What is going on in there?

The girl next door is only wearing a pink silk robe, which is falling off her shoulder at a scandalous rate. An arm tries to pull her back into the room and she sends a high kick into whoever was trying to coerce her into sex whilst someone is apparently dying in the building. Someone down the hall starts shouting for everyone to SHUT UP SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO SLEEP and the girl from next door shouts back with a cacophony of profanity and insults Anders has never even heard of before, and he was in the military.

The former-medic/nurse/med-student goes to his neighbour’s door and tries knocking on it. No one answers. There are no lights coming from under the door. The hallway is quiet for one moment, and Anders wonders if the sound was just a mass fever dream when a scream breaks out again.

“Shit!” Anders finds he mutters to himself. He was hoping for a quiet night, but now he was walking straight into his work zone.

“Call an ambulance, sweetie.” A hand is pushing a cellphone into Ander’s hand and then the practically naked girl is pushing him out of the way, pulling a fucking set of lock picks from nowhere, _where was she keeping those?_ And immediately setting her sights on the apartment’s lock.

It takes Anders but a moment to process what he was told to do before he dials the emergency number and hands over his information to the operator. Address. Apartment number. We need an ambulance, maybe a cop. They’re screaming!

People in the hallway seem to be picking up on the fact that this isn’t someone being a dick, something is seriously wrong. Another set of screams break out from the apartment and the girl at the lock let’s out a string of swears and then the lock clicks and the door is open and Anders is entering the apartment without thinking. He hears the girl tell everyone to buzz off as he tries to switch on the light, but nothing works.

Inside the apartment, the sounds of anguish are more prominent. There’s heavy breathing and thrashing, and Anders is already categorising symptoms in his head, trying to piece together what’s going on. The light from the hallway is enough to barely make out a shape lying on the floor. It’s moving, but not much. The screams have stopped, but the figure is obviously hyperventilating.

“Oh shit.” Anders hears the girl from next door behind him. She too tries the light switch. “Fucking.”

He has no idea where she pulled the flashlight from, but the soft yellow light is illuminating the wall.

“Don’t shine it directly on them.” Anders whispers harshly, not wanting to accidentally frighten whoever was suffering, or blind them, for that matter.

“I know, I know.” The light shines close enough for Anders to make out the figure.

An elf, young adult, Dalish judging by the markings, lying on the floor. No visible injuries, but appears to be shivering. Hyperventilation. He takes slow steps towards the figure. Their eyes are closed tightly, and their hands are carving lines into the floor. A seizure? An epileptic fit?

The girl is stepping up behind him and the light is more direct. The elf’s breathing is harsh, heavy, but his movement has suddenly gone slack. “Unconscious.” Anders murmurs under his breath.

“There’s no one else here.” The girl points out. “Couldn’t’ve been attacked.”

“There isn’t any sign of attack. It’s more likely this is an individual bodily reaction.” Anders hesitantly presses his fingers to the figure’s neck. “Breathing, at least, but the pulse is way too quick.”

“How long until the ambulance gets here?”

“It’s a Friday night, so the ER should be pretty busy. That slows down reaction time a bit, but the vagueness of my diagnosis at time of call suggests a much more urgent situation, so they should be here any minute.” Serendipity calls in the form of a siren in the distance.

“Poor kitten.”

The police are the first in, and Anders directs them away from the body. If the figure is having a seizure or a fit, they want to prevent any more risks of injury. The girl from next door leaves his side to fill them in, and Anders hears one of them ask her, with obvious embarrassment, if she could tie her robe a little more. By now she was practically naked, so like…Where did she pull that lock pick from?

Not the time.

The ambulance arrives next and Anders gets out of the way. He knows some of the ERT from school and work, which is good because they recognise him and listen when he explains the situation whilst one of them starts running vitals.

They gather up the body and carry it downstairs. Anders stands by the girl next door as they wait in the hallway, watching. Waiting.

“Fun night, huh?” The girl says, wry with humour.

“Indeed.” He sighs. With the situation taken out of his hands, his mind feels free to set a week’s worth of exhaustion on him. He doesn’t feel like he can sleep, though.

“You look pretty tired there, sweets.” The girl has set a hand on his arm.

“I am.” He responds.

“Come in, I think I got some sedative tea.” She pulls him into her apartment, and he almost trips on the unconscious body of the man the girl had been, apparently, been pretending to fuck. “Aw damn, one moment.” He watches, confused, as the girl picks through the man’s wallet, pulls out all his cash, then drags his body into the hallway. Good thing the police have left…

“Now then, tea?”

Tomorrow Anders will go to the hospital and ask after his neighbour. Tomorrow he will learn his neighbour had a severe panic attack. Tomorrow he will find out that the guy will be fine. He’ll even learn the guy’s name. But now, right now, he’ll freely pass out on the couch of a stranger, and thank the Maker he doesn’t have any valuables on him right now.

Fucking Finals.

-

It’s disorienting to wake up someplace unknown. Terrifying, even, especially considering the events that happen before memory kicks it. When your last memory is pure panic and absolute darkness, opening your eyes to the only slightly dimmed fluorescent lights of an unknown room is not the best situation to be in.

Lavellan’s breath becomes heavy as he tries to figure where he is, what happened, but his body feels a metric ton heavier than he remember sit to be, like there’s an overbearing weight sitting on his chest. He gasps audibly, as if the new airflow will help.

Five minutes pass before a nurse finds him hyperventilating, trying to claw himself out of bed. He can’t feel his legs, can’t see them.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, hon, calm down.” The nurse tries to ease him back into bed, but he flinches at her touch.

“Where am I? Who are you?” He would shout if he could, but he can only manage a whisper. His throat feels raw, like he’s swallowed a pack of razors.

“You’re in Sacred Circle Hospital. My name is Lily, I’m a nurse here.” She’s smiling, trying to look non-threatening. Lavellan is digging his nails into his skin, trying to ground himself.

“How how…What happened?” He coughs harshly as he tries to speak.

The nurse walks out of his view, but her voice carries around the small room. “One of your neighbours heard you screaming last night. He called an ambulance and had you brought here.” She’s back in view now, holding a cup. “Let me help you sit up, you’ll want some water for your throat.”

His breath is steadying, and he nods, obliging for the woman to help him sit up against the pillows. He gratefully drinks the cup of water, and a second cup. His mouth is dry, and tastes like his own breath. Ugh.

“You were brought in around two in the morning. The ERT thought you were having a seizure, but the doctors confirmed it was just a severe panic attack. The doctor wants to talk to you, but you’ve sustained no lasting injuries, and can be let go later today.” The nurse, Lily, smiles again like she’s looking at a small animal.

“Oh…” Lavellan shivers. “I don’t know where…” He has no idea where exactly he is. He’s never been to this place before, hell he doesn’t even have any insurance. How is he going to pay for this? The panic is coming back, and he clutches to himself as if that will help. Shit, he really got himself in trouble this time.

“Hey don’t go there again, everything is going to be OK.” The nurse is by his side now and he realises he’s started to hyperventilate again. “Do you want me to get a phone for you? The police couldn’t find any information on you, so we couldn’t find your emergency contact.”

“I don’t know his number…” Lavellan whispers.

“I can look it up, if you want? If you give me his name.” She looks earnest, but Lavellan has a hard time trusting people. Not just right now, always.

Still, he remembers that he has no health insurance, no money, no phone and no way of getting home. He gives her Solas’s name.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short, two chapter fic but I got carried away, so it's going to be a little longer. Mostly it's because I remembered Rhys and Evangeline and wanted to put them in the story. The focus of this was going to be the relationship between Lavellan and Cole, and that's still an important feature that will appear in the next chapter, but somehow this also became about law systems and also mental health?  
> Lavellan believing his disorder to be a curse is actually something I took from some ethnographic observations I read that mentioned that some indigenous tribes somewhere believed madness could only be caused by a witch doctor's curse.  
> I really like the idea of modern!Solas having tattoos, especially tattoos of what he did wrong.  
> Anders wasn't supposed to appear in this but I wrote that bit around finals and...Well, you can see the influence there. Isabela wasn't supposed to be in this either, but I really enjoyed her cameo  
> I haven't been to the ER much in my life, but the one time I was a patient there we arrived at the ER around seven and were there till four in the morning so there's that  
> For those whoa re reading Counting with the Dead, this will make a lot more sense in that context after I get the next chapter out.


End file.
